Monday, 31 August 2015

August's Star Trek releases include the full 2016 calendar range, two books-only Star Trek prose titles, and two crossover comics as well! Continue below for details of all those and much more.

Prose

This month's new novel was the third in the Seekers series,Long Shot, a new adventure for the USS Sagittarius from David Mack.

SCIENCE GONE MAD…Bizarre sensor readings lead the Starfleet scout ship Sagittarius to an alien world where efforts to harness a dangerous and unstable technology have thrown the laws of probability out of balance. Now, events that might have occurred only one time in a trillion are hap­pening constantly—to deadly and dazzling effect.

A PLANET IN PERIL…As disasters and miracles multiply globally at an ever-increasing rate, it’s up to Captain Clark Terrell and his crew to shut down the experiment-gone-wrong before its storm of chaos causes the planet’s destruction. But the odds against their success—and their survival—might be too great to overcome.

A couple of new Star Trek decorative items to grace yours lives: From ThinkGeek, they've added an extra dimension to their range of decals, with this injection molded USS Enterprise emblem to stick to your car. The embossed-style details of the Enterprise are finished in a chrome-effect, and the product description, a little scarily, notes that is has "aggressive adhesive backing"!

First up, the latest photos from The Collection's manager, Ben Robinson, posted on his Twitter account. These are the first photos we've seen of the beautiful Norway class model, which will become as issue sixty-one in the series, due out at in the UK first at the end of this year (and following later in other markets).

Friday, 21 August 2015

Several of the recent Star Trek action figures and figurines which were first revealed a few weeks ago at the San Diego Comic Con are now starting to appear on maker and retailer websites, and with them come lots of new images to help us check out all the new designs. Continue below to inspect all the latest figurative Star Trek releases.

Today marks the second anniversary of the publication of the first issue of Eaglemoss' Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection. With over fifty issues already out, and the series due to continue until at least a ninetieth issue (plus a few specials and bonus issues here and there), there are still loads of cool Star Trek starships designs I would love to see added to the line-up, should the series continue on into the hundreds. So to mark the second birthday, here's my wishlist of twenty ships I would like to see included as the series continues over the next two or more years!

Ringship Enterprise

Almost all the starships Enterprise have already been done, leaving just the Enterprise-A, Enterprise-J, and this, the mysterious ringship Enterprise. First seen among the historical Enterprises images in The Motion Picture, images of this ship were also seen in Enterprise, and a model of it appeared in Into Darkness. That model was based on the Mark Rademaker version of the ship which appeared in the Ships of the Line calendar. An unusual design, with a long history throughout the series, how could the Starships Collection be complete if it omitted one of the Enterprises?

Earth Spacedock

To me, this is the iconic design of the TOS movie era. The sheer scale and utter beauty of Spacedock really helps sell the scope of Starfleet and the Federation as organisations; this universe is way bigger than one ship boldly going. Spacedock is as important design as any of the movie-era ships, and while it's obviously not a ship itself it still deserves a place in The Collection - Hopefully a nice big special-sized space to really do this thing justice.

The Mirror Universe epic continues here as the evil counterparts of the Enterprise crew gain the upper hand! Captain Kirk finds himself allied with the mysterious man known only as Singh, while Spock comes face to face with his deceased mother... now alive and well in the Mirror Universe! Don't miss this all-new original STAR TREK adventure!

There will be two covers for this issue, the Tony Shasteen A cover (pictured), and a subscription variant cover by Lorelei Bunjes (which hasn't been released yet):

The book is the first of several planned Star Trek titles from Insight Editions, and since it was first announced had been full of promise, with the expectation it will be packed full of new and archival imagery and a insights from Star Trek costume designers from across the ages. Now we have our first look at that promise wholly fulfilled, thanks to a selection of sample pages Insight Editions have released. Continue after the jump to check them out:

Sunday, 16 August 2015

Two more waves in the ever-expanding Star Trek: Attack Wing miniatures game have been revealed, thanks to listings on Ikon Collectables. The twenty-third and twenty-fourth waves, each featuring three individual starship expansions, are due for release in February and March next year.

While the Saber class and Raven are new to Attack Wing, the models have previously appeared in other Wizkids Star Trek games, and as non-retail prizes in previous Attack Wing organised play events. After the run of brand new models in many of the preceding waves, that is perhaps a little disappointing - Wave fifteen was the last to feature no new models!

Meanwhile the latest wave does feature a particularly pleasing new addition to the fleet. Continue after the jump to check out the official images of the just released wave seventeen. Plus news of a new game on the way from Wizkids.

Friday, 14 August 2015

Last weekend the annual Shore Leave convention occurred in Maryland. As has become the tradition, Star Trek book writers flocked there and revealed details of many forthcoming titles, including several new book announcements, and details of some of the ones we already knew about. In fact the entire 2016 novel schedule has now been filled out, plus a few titles known for 2017 already!

From Christopher L. Bennett, as detailed on his blog, the TOS novel he has previously mentioned is now scheduled to be the January book in 2017, which means it should find it's way to the shops just in time for the end of the 50th anniversary year. This will be a five-year-mission story, and the title is The Face of the Unknown. That title had an air of familiarity about it to me, and a quick search reveals it is a line from The Corbomite Maneuver; I wonder if we'll be visiting the First Federation?

Bennett has also announced he will be continuing his Department of Temporal Investigations series, with a second ebook novella, Time Lock. There is no scheduling information for this one yet.

Dayton Ward also had plenty of news, which he has blogged about too. The big TOS books event of 2016 will be the Legacies trilogy, set for release from July to September. All three titles have now been revealed:

The other new title reveal comes from Jeffrey Lang, whose DS9 novel featuring Miles O'Brien and Nog now has a title, Force and Motion; it fills the last slot in the 2016 schedule, due out in June. Posting on the TrekBBS, Lang has revealed some details about the book:

Wednesday, 12 August 2015

Out this week is the second issue in The Spectrum War, the nuTrek/Green Lantern crossover comic, written by Mike Johnson, with art by Angel Hernandez. This issue has three covers, including the B cover by Darick Robertson, and coloured by Diego Rodriguez, which has not been previewed previously. Continue below to check out the other covers, and a five page preview from the issue:

There's a new release of TOS on DVD on the way, a complete series boxset, with a snazzy new cover design. As StarTrek.com report, the DVDs will feature the remastered versions of all the episodes, plus all the extra features from the most recent previous DVD releases.

Monday, 10 August 2015

I think it's safe to say John Jackson Miller is now firmly established in the Star Trek writers A-team. Following his Titan ebook debut,Absent Enemies, and the fantastic TNG (with Aventine and Titanelements) novel Takedown, he will return to the Trekverse next year with an entire trilogy! Starting in October, and running for three consecutive months, will be Prey, which Miller describes on his blog as "a star-spanning Next Generation epic of the Federation and the Klingon Empire!"

In other books news, on Twitter Paula Block has revealed the next ebook she and Terry Erdmann are working on has got a new title. Previously known as The Empty Sack, and then A Quark of Fate, their next Quark story will now be known as The Rules of Accusation. There's still not publication date set for this, but it was hoped it would be out this year some time.

Sunday, 9 August 2015

Newly announced, and due out next year is the Star Trek Encyclopedia, the long awaited update to the comprehensive reference guide to Star Trek, the first edition of which came out in 1994. The last update, the third edition, came in 1999; so until now the Encyclopedia has been missing information on the last few seasons of Voyager, all Enterprise, and movies from Nemesis onwards.

The new edition will be huge, more than a thousand pages split over two hardcover volumes, released in a slipcase. Star Trek specialist books makers Becker and Mayer, are developing the book, with the original authors, Michael and Denise Okuda returning to update and expand their work. Here's the blurb from Becker and Mayer:

With the previous edition published in 1999, this long-awaited update to The Star Trek Encyclopedia will include a completely new design, illustrations, and exhaustive entries on the characters, ships, and events from the last 15 years of Star Trek television shows and movies.

Nearly 300 pages of new text and illustrations will provide fans with a complete reference to the Star Trek canon. This authoritative two volume hardcover edition will release in 2016, in time for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

According to StarTrek.com, the new formatting will see the entire prime universe catalogued together, with information on the alternate timeline of the nuTrek movies listed in an appendix section.

Posting on their Facebook page, the Okudas revealed they have already been working on this for a year, and are anticipating a July release next year. StarTrek.com is less specific, describing an autumn release. The Okudas also note the cover may not be final.

Becker and Mayer do have a couple of sample pages on their website. But these are most definitely not final, as the text is all larem ipsum (ie, nonsense):

This is a replacement for my old lists page, which linked to lists hosted by Amazon on their listmania feature. This was a convenient way to put together reference lists for all kinds of Star Trek subjects, which I use for personal reference and to give context in my articles. But it also had limitations in formatting, and being constrained by what is available in the Amazon catalogue. More pressingly they've recently stopped supporting the feature, so an alternative needed to be found!

It will take a while to rebuild all my old lists in the new site, so until those are all in place the index pages on the new site also include links to the old Amazon lists, which will be gradually phased out. The old lists page was a quietly popular little page, so I hope you'll find the new replacement even more useful for your Star Trek referencing needs.

Are there any lists in particular you would find useful? Let me know in the comments.

With a focus on Sulu and Scotty, Mike Johnson has written what is one of the strongest opening issues in the series I can recall in a while. It's helped along by some glorious artwork from Tony Shashteen, who really has a talent for bringing strange new worlds to life.

There is a definite retro flavour to the latest Star Trek action figures. New from Funko, and exclusive to Entertainment Earth, the ReAction Figures range of Kenner style three-and-three-quarter inch action figures has its first Star Trek variants; mid-beaming versions of Kirk and Spock, complete with transporter effect glitter! Both are due to arrive this month, and will join the previous eight figures in the range so far.

Meanwhile, if you prefer a larger format old-school figure, you'll have to wait until January, when the first release in Diamond Select Toys reissues of their retro cloth action figures is due. The first pair to return will be Spock and Khan. Based on this, DST might be changing up the grouping of these figures, as in the first run of releases Spock came out paired with the Andorian, while Khan was a lonely retailer exclusive, so he's getting a wider release this time around.

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

One of the best things about Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is that it quite regularly gives us models of ships which have never been available in physical form before. One of those coming up is the USS Relativity, the 29th century timeship seen in Voyager. It will be out by the end of the year, as issue fifty-nine in the series, and while we wait for it to find it's way back to the 21st century, the series' manager, Ben Robinson, posted several photos on Twitter of the unusual iridescent blue model. Continue below to check out more of this ship and others Ben has recently previewed.

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Got lots of little updates from all IDW's various Star Trek comic titles today, starting with a few hints at what we're going to see in the forthcoming nuTrekStarfleet Academy series. Talking to Flickering Myth, writer, Mike Johnson, summarised the series:

These are all-new adventures featuring the iconic crew at the Academy during the 2009 movie, between their arrival as cadets and their departure on the Enterprise after the destruction of Vulcan. We are also introducing a new cast of cadets at the Academy in the “present” time after the events of INTO DARKNESS, while the iconic crew (now a few years older) is away on their Five Year Mission. The two storylines will intercut and ultimately tie together in a cool way that I can’t spoil yet.

A few more specifics were revealed in a panel at the San Diego Comic Con, as Bleeding Cool reported, the new characters featured in the series will be:

An Asian human with prosthetic legs.

T’Laan, a Vulcan who joined Starfleet Academy the day Vulcan was destroyed.

Lucia Dominguez, a Latina human.

Shev, a male Andorian.

Vel K’Bentayr, a member of the same species as the alien from the USS Kelvin bridge crew.

You can see all five on the cover for issue one pictured, this version showing the Derek Cham artwork without the titles was shared by Chris Ryall on his Tumblr. The series is due to start around the end of the year.

Further in his discussion with Flickering Myth, Johnson also confirmed work is underway on a comic-book set up to the next movie:

The Perth Mint have continued their Star Trek coin collection with the release of their third captain and ship set, Sisko and DS9, plus an extra coin featuring Spock.

The Spock coin is the latest release, standing somewhat apart from the rest of the series, in not coming with a companion ship coin. The design of the coin itself also diverges in that sense, while keeping the same overall the style, the other captain coins have had some sort of schematic of their ships aside their portraits, while Spock is pictured with the Vulcan IDIC symbol instead.

In common with the rest of the series, the coin has a face value of one Tuvalu dollar, although being struck from silver is worth somewhat more. The reverse face of the coin features Queen Elizabeth II. The coin comes in the same illuminated display case the rest of the Star Trek coins have been released in. These will be available in an edition of five-thousand.

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